Madam Speaker, we try to find words to describe what Tori Stafford's father has expressed over the last several days and what he has been going through over the last number of years.
The hon. official opposition House leader said something that was very telling. Whenever it feels like it has gotten better, something else happens, another shoe drops, and the pain comes back. Two words come to mind when I think of what that must be for this family: nightmare and hell. The courage it has taken for a father, who has done what no parent ever wants to do, who has lost his child to express his pain and ask for his government to be there to support him. That requires a level of courage that, I admit, I, nor do I believe many of us, have. I want to thank him for reminding us that we have a responsibility that sometimes leads to contradictions.
On the one hand, we hear the pain of people who have been victims of the most despicable, heinous and horrible crimes that humanity can imagine. At the same time, we try to ensure we have a system that works. Sometimes those objectives do not even out. It is like trying to put a square peg into a round hole, which is the ultimate challenge we have in this place.
Before I go any further, I would like to mention the question I addressed to my friends in the Conservative Party on the motion before us, and it is an important to look at this, which is the rhetoric around such a debate. Quite frankly, it is our ultimate responsibility to ask questions about the comportment and the decisions that are made by an agency, or service in this case, that is under the purview of the federal government, and more specific, the public safety minister. It is our responsibility to ensure that if a mistake has been made or if the law may be out of date, that those changes be made. At the same time, as we see throughout our work and indeed in other jurisdictions, other countries, provinces and territories, the rhetoric we use as politicians is also extremely important.
I raise this because there has been a question in this place with respect to the details of these horrific crimes and the debate we are engaged in. Any criticism of the use of those details has been equated with telling people to shut up. For the record, and I will only speak for myself and my colleagues in the New Democratic Party, we have the responsibility to raise these issues.